Sitecore Advanced Configuration in .config files

Sitecore allows you to create configuration sections in /configuration/sitecore/ that consists of hierarchies of configurations including lists, and it will even help you serialize the configuration to object instances.

Observe the following real life example of a configuration I created to configure lists of IP adresses and IP ranges to ignore in my web application:

<pt_restrictions>
  <restriction type="Restrictions.Model.Configuration, Restrictions">
    <ipraddresses hint="raw:AddIpAddresses" >
<address ip="127.0.0.1" />
<address ip="127.0.0.2" />
    </ipraddresses>
    <ipranges hint="raw:AddIpRanges">
      <range from="192.168.0.1" to="192.168.0.255"/>
      <range from="192.169.0.1" to="192.169.0.255"/>
    </ipranges>
  </restriction>
</pt_restrictions>

The configuration section is added to a Sitecore .config file under /configuration/sitecore/.

Please notice the “type” property “Restrictions.Model.Configuration, Restrictions” and the 2 “hint” properties. These allows Sitecore to perform some reflection magic that will map the configuration section to classes.

So let’s code. First I will create an interface that outlines my configuration, a list of Ip Addresses and a list of Ip Ranges

namespace Restrictions.Model
{
  public interface IConfiguration
  {
    IEnumerable<IpAddress> IpAddresses { get; }
    IEnumerable<IpRange> IpRanges { get; }
  }
}

I need implementations of IpAddress and IpRange. The implementations contains the XML attributes as properties:

namespace Restrictions.Model
{
  public class IpAddress
  {
    public string Ip { get; set; }
  }

  public class IpRange
  {
    public string From { get; set; }
    public string To { get; set; }
  }
}

For the final touch,  I will assemble it all in a Configuration class. And here is where the magic lies. Remember the “hint=”raw:AddIpAddresses” and “hint=”raw.AddIpRanges”” attributes? These are method names in my class. Sitecore calls these for each Xml node:

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Xml;

namespace Restrictions.Model
{
  public class Configuration : IConfiguration
  {
    private readonly List<IpAddress> _ipAddresses = new List<IpAddress>();
    public IEnumerable<IpAddress> IpAddresses { get { return _ipAddresses; } }

    private readonly List<IpRange> _ipRanges = new List<IpRange>();
    public IEnumerable<IpRange> IpRanges  { get { return _ipRanges; } }

    protected void AddIpAddresses(XmlNode node)
    {
      if (node == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["ip"] == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["ip"].Value == null)
        return;

      _ipAddresses.Add(new IpAddress() { Ip = node.Attributes["ip"].Value });
    }

    protected void AddIpRanges(XmlNode node)
    {
      if (node == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["from"] == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["from"].Value == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["to"] == null)
        return;
      if (node.Attributes["to"].Value == null)
        return;

      _ipRanges.Add(new IpRange() { From = node.Attributes["from"].Value, To = node.Attributes["to"].Value });
    }
  }
}

The final class is the repository that will use reflection magic to convert an XmlNode to a class implementation:

using System.Xml;

namespace Restrictions.Model.Repositories
{
  public class ConfigurationRepository
  {
    public IConfiguration GetConfiguration(string restrictionName)
    {
      XmlNode xmlNode = Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.GetConfigNode("pt_restrictions/restriction");
      return Sitecore.Configuration.Factory.CreateObject<IConfiguration>(xmlNode);
    }
  }
}

I use the class like this:

ConfigurationRepository rep = new ConfigurationRepository();
IConfiguration config = rep.GetConfiguration();

foreach (var ipaddress in config.IpAddresses)
  // do stuff;
  
foreach (var iprange in config.IpRanges)
  // do stuff

It looks like a big job (and it probably is) but once you get it running, it is easy to extend and use elsewhere.

MORE TO READ:

• Sitecore web.config include files (auto-include) by Briancaos
• THE SITECORE ASP.NET CMS CONFIGURATION FACTORY by John West
• Using Sitecore Configuration Factory For Dependency Injection by Jeffrey Rondeau
• Un-tangling Sitecore configuration includes by Alan Coates
• Structured, Type Safe Settings in Sitecore 9 by Alan Coates